A beauty queen and Miss Wales contestant was stabbed in the neck by her own mother while she was sleeping.

Kumari Mahendran, 26, woke in horror when she felt a 'really hard punch' to her neck and her mother standing over her brandishing a steak knife.

She shouted out 'Mother, you've stabbed me' before she escaped through the front door.

A court heard how Chitrani Mahendran, 74, chased her daughter from room to room with the blade before she fled onto the street in her leopard-print nightwear.

Kumari, who competed in Miss Wales 2013, had organized for her mother to be flown from Britain to her native Sri Lanka because of her ill health in the days before the attack.

Recalling the ordeal the beauty queen told Cardiff Crown Court how she was woken twice by her mother stroking her hair as she lay in bed - but fell back asleep both times after she was told: 'Go to sleep, go to sleep.'

But the next time she woke it was because she felt a sharp blow to her neck.

She said: 'It felt like a really hard punch to my neck. I woke up and my mum was standing over me with a steak knife.

'I was really shocked and confused. I was thinking: "Has she stabbed me?" I touched my neck and felt blood coming out and felt really faint.

'I said to her "Mother you've just stabbed me'".

Kumari, who studied mathematics at Cardiff University, was then chased by her mother who was still wielding the steak knife.

The 26-year-old said she could not unlock her phone to call an ambulance as her hands were soaked in blood.

She explained: 'I felt very faint and scared. I tried to get out of the house but couldn't find my keys, daily mail reports.

'She confronted me and I said I needed an ambulance, but she said first we needed to discuss what to say to the police.'

Kumari wrestled with her mother in the living room and managed to grab the knife from her by clutching onto the jagged blade, before pushing her into the TV and escaping through the front door.

Neighbour Elin Cooper, 18, was walking back home from morning lessons at nearby Ysgol Glantaf high school in Cardiff when she heard Kumari screaming down the street, mirror UK reports.

She told the court: 'Kumari was shouting "Please help me, my mother has just stabbed me in the neck."

'She had blood all over her neck, chest and arms and on her leopard-style onesie.

'The mother was standing at the top of the road just looking at us.'

Another neighbour Nia Davies, 43, took the blood-drenched girl inside her home while they waited for an ambulance to arrive.